Houston? We have a solution...

Divided We Stand The country is hopelessly split. So why not make it official and break up?

The year is 2019. California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, recently elected on a platform that included support for the creation of a single-payer health-care system, now must figure out how to enact it. A prior nonpartisan analysis priced it at $400 billion per year — twice the state’s current budget. There appears to be no way to finance such a plan without staggering new taxes, making California a magnet for those with chronic illnesses just as its tax rates send younger, healthier Californians house-hunting in Nevada and big tech employers consider leaving the state.

But Newsom is not alone. Other governors have made similar promises, and Newsom calls together the executives of the most ideologically like-minded states — Oregon, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland. What if they banded to create a sole unified single-payer health-care system, spreading risk around a much larger pool of potential patients while creating uniformity across some of the country’s wealthiest states?

Fifteen end up forming an interstate compact, a well-established mechanism for working together, explicitly introduced in the Constitution. They sketch out the contours of a common health-care market: a unified single-payer regime with start-up costs funded in part by the largest issue ever to hit the municipal-bond market. The governors agree, as well, on a uniform payroll tax and a new tax on millionaires and corporations set to the same rate with revenues earmarked for health-care costs. The Trump administration has already proved willing to grant waivers to states looking to experiment beyond the Affordable Care Act’s standards — primarily for the benefit of those seeking to offer plans on their exchanges with skimpier coverage. But the states can’t act unilaterally: The Supreme Court has ruled that Congress must approve establishment of any compact claiming authority that previously resided with the federal government.

No universal government administered health insurance scheme will work, (whether nationally or in a conglomeration of several States) unless you find a way to bring into that system the 70% or so percent of the productive working population who are having 70% of their health insurance premium paid for by their employer … unless you just admit the public universal program is pretty much just a welfare program that the 70% of those with employer subsidized insurance will have to pay for through their taxes (in addition to their own employer sponsored health insurance premiums) IMO, that's just an economic fact.

Medicare for all could work, IMO … if you could bring in those who currently have employer sponsored insurance, along with the employer-paid portion of their premiums. But, I really don't see how that can happen politically. I remember back in the 90's when they were floating the idea of HillaryCare. The way they were going to help pay for by putting all the uninsurables under the Federal employees health care program, which would have destroyed the risk pool and raided premiums for Federal employees astronomically. The Federal employee unions screamed bloody murder and that idea was killed quickly.

Even McCain in '08 in order to help expand the private health insurance market proposed cutting the tax deduction employers get for subsidizing employee health insurance, and instead putting that money in the employee's paycheck so they could purchase plans outside of whatever plan their employer had chosen for them …. and then give the employee the tax deduction for their health insurance premium. That trial balloon didn't fly very high either. McCain was positively crucified by left and right alike for that idea. (although, the idea was actually a good one, IMO)

I run into ignorant-ass Southerners talking about seceding all the time, completely unaware of the fact that our states are failures at self-sufficiency and are dependent on all those "liberal" states they hate so much to survive. Mississippi takes in about $3 from the fed for every tax dollar collected, still get the worst of everything, and yet we're gonna secede? Fuuuuuck. They think they're just gonna live off deer. Deer disappear fast if everybody's hunting 'em.

Secession -- like nationalism -- is a fun defiant fantasy for people with no understanding of economics, intersectionality, or how anything works. All that talk is just tiresome make-believe bullshit that the rest of us have to sit through. Listening to a Mississippian talk about "leaving the union" always reminds me of enduring a five-year old try to tell me how he thinks an internal-combustion engine works. Lotsa zoom-whoosh-boom-vroom spraying spit all over the place, and then "Huh? What's a carburetor?"

There are a lot of factors that go into your talkingpoint. Rural vs urban... military and defense spending... using the whole state vs per capita... elderly healthcare... labor/production vs endpoint distribution/export... all of the way down to those states having been very democratic and their politicians sending home the pork in the past. It's not as simple as you make it out to be... it just fits your simple understanding.

zsomething wrote:I run into ignorant-ass Southerners talking about seceding all the time, completely unaware of the fact that our states are failures at self-sufficiency and are dependent on all those "liberal" states they hate so much to survive. Mississippi takes in about $3 from the fed for every tax dollar collected, still get the worst of everything, and yet we're gonna secede? Fuuuuuck. They think they're just gonna live off deer. Deer disappear fast if everybody's hunting 'em.

Secession -- like nationalism -- is a fun defiant fantasy for people with no understanding of economics, intersectionality, or how anything works. All that talk is just tiresome make-believe bullshit that the rest of us have to sit through. Listening to a Mississippian talk about "leaving the union" always reminds me of enduring a five-year old try to tell me how he thinks an internal-combustion engine works. Lotsa zoom-whoosh-boom-vroom spraying spit all over the place, and then "Huh? What's a carburetor?"

Seen this?https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-split-three-states-20180612-story.html

"Ignorant ass Californians", those wishful liberal thinkers have tried more than 200 times to do something like this over the years. LOL, California, you know the place - that's where Pelosi the Botox Queen has been repeatedly elected. Business is great there for her husband but then his conflict of interest queen has helped quite a bit...

zsomething wrote:I run into ignorant-ass Southerners talking about seceding all the time, completely unaware of the fact that our states are failures at self-sufficiency and are dependent on all those "liberal" states they hate so much to survive. Mississippi takes in about $3 from the fed for every tax dollar collected, still get the worst of everything, and yet we're gonna secede? Fuuuuuck. They think they're just gonna live off deer. Deer disappear fast if everybody's hunting 'em.

Secession -- like nationalism -- is a fun defiant fantasy for people with no understanding of economics, intersectionality, or how anything works. All that talk is just tiresome make-believe bullshit that the rest of us have to sit through. Listening to a Mississippian talk about "leaving the union" always reminds me of enduring a five-year old try to tell me how he thinks an internal-combustion engine works. Lotsa zoom-whoosh-boom-vroom spraying spit all over the place, and then "Huh? What's a carburetor?"

Mississippi hillbillies are pretty dumb but lately Florida hillbillies are sliding down the same shithole. Alabama and Georgia hillbillies are not far behind. Here's hoping that a Hurricane or red tide wipes every one of the useless dirtbags off the face of the earth.